Congress Investigates
Industry Junk Science Journal with Ties to
Glynn County and Altama Elementary School

The outrageous conduct of the American Chemistry Council, their
stacking of chemical and health advisory boards, and the questionable
science in their journal, Regulatory
Toxicology and Pharmacology, has spawned a Congressional
investigation with implications for Glynn County, and Altama Elementary
School.

John Dingell, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, started
the investigation when the American Chemistry Council tried to have a
chemical review panel member removed without cause. The investigation soon
uncovered how the American Chemistry Council had been removing critical
health information from panel reports and suppressing scientific reports and
information, or publishing junk science in their journal, which in some
cases the EPA had used exclusively to make decisions. The recent news
reports about Bisphenol A and the recall of plastic products containing the
chemical are a direct result of this investigation, which is continuing.

Okay. What does this have to do with Glynn County and Altama Elementary
School?

The GEC brought our concerns about
the under-quantification of toxaphene to the attention of EPA Region 4
throughout the 1990’s without satisfactory results. The GEC submitted our
concerns to the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG), which became a formal
audit that culminated with the EPA OIG releasing “Appropriate Testing and
Timely Reporting Are Needed at the Hercules 009 Landfill Superfund Site
Brunswick, Georgia,” which abuts Altama Elementary School.

In response to the EPA OIG Report,
EPA Region 4 and the State of Georgia produced the article, “Development of
a reference dose for the persistent congeners of weathered toxaphene based
on vivo and in vitro effects related to tumor promotion,” which was
published in Regulatory Toxicology and
Pharmacology, by Ted Simon, EPA Region 4; and Randall Manning,
Georgia Environmental Protection Division, hereafter referred to as Simon
and Manning. Noteworthy was that the article did not present any new data,
but rather was a creative reinterpretation of existing scientific studies,
which came to a radically different conclusion about the toxicological
properties of toxaphene and advocated testing for only three of the 670+
chemicals in the toxaphene mixture, which would not be present or only in
very small amounts. The EPA OIG found the article interesting but noted
that the method proposed would underestimate the amount of toxaphene
chemicals present and would exclude the toxaphene chemicals present in the
largest amounts.

The EPA OIG noted in his close-out
letter that EPA Region 4 remained steadfast in their refusal to test for and
report all toxaphene chemicals present. Furthermore, the EPA OIG stated
that EPA Region 4 should provide the calculations used to reach conclusions
in the Simon and Manning article, which the EPA and the authors have been
unable to provide. When the authors only do a reanalysis of other's science
and can’t produce the calculations in support of their conclusions, this is
a strong indication that it is "junk science".

After the EPA OIG found the method
to test for toxaphene in our community inappropriate, the GEC requested that
EPA Region 4 re-sample Altama Elementary School that abuts the Hercules 009
Landfill Superfund Site, which has documented releases to the school
property from the Superfund Site and has only received testing by the method
found to be inappropriate and known to under-quantify toxaphene. Further
requests to test the school were made by the Glynn County Board of
Education. Instead of testing the school, the EPA Region 4 made a
presentation to the Board of Education on January 29, 2008. In this EPA
Region 4 presentation, based upon the Simon and Manning article, the EPA
concluded that even if chemicals were present, they were not harmful to the
elementary school students, and refused to re-test a school known to be
contaminated and only tested by an inappropriate method. The GEC is hopeful
that the Congressional investigation will assist us in getting the proper
testing, which our community deserves.

Glynn County
Gets More Junk Science

Did you know that the PCBs in
Glynn County are 10 times less toxic than PCBs found in other communities?
That is exactly what is being argued in an article published in the journal
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology,
which is known to be friendly to the chemical manufacturing industry
and supported by the American Chemistry Council. The article, from this
junk science journal now under investigation by Congress, appeared in the
recent ecological risk assessment for the estuary next to the LCP Chemicals
Superfund Site.

To say the article, entitled,
"Development of a neurotoxic equivalence scheme of relative potency for
assessing the risk of PCB mixtures," is science is quite a stretch. There
is no original data, only a hodge-podge of pick and choose papers strung
together and commented upon to reach a conclusion. Not only is this tactic
similar to what was done to hide toxaphene on Altama Elementary School, the
article was written by one of the same authors of the article arguing for
testing only 3 of the 670+ chemicals in toxaphene, Dr. Ted Simon.

This junk science article is
undergoing further review by our community's technical advisor, Dr. R. Kevin Pegg, and we will publish his review when completed.